Roller wheels that roll clockwise and counterclockwise for scroll events and that can be pressed inward radially for generating select events are known. One example of a device that uses such a wheel is the RIM (Research In Motion) 960 Pager. A roller wheel is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,525,997 B1 “EFFICIENT USE OF DISPLAY REAL ESTATE IN A WRIST WATCH DISPLAY,” which is incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein.
Referring to FIG. 1, there is shown a known wrist-worn electronic device 100 comprising a rolling wheel 104 for controlling a screen 106. The rolling wheel 104 can be rolled up or down (clockwise or counter-clockwise) to simulate a cursor scrolling function. A mouse click event is simulated when the rolling wheel 104 is pushed or depressed. However, such wheels as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,525,997 have limited degrees of freedom and hence limit the utility of the wheel as a selection device since only vertical scrolling functionality is possible. It would be desirable to have a rolling wheel with horizontal scrolling capabilities and a greater range of movement.
Accordingly there is a need for an input device for information handling systems that overcomes the above shortcoming in the prior art.